Srinagar/New Delhi, April 19
Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and the BJP on Saturday blasted hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani for his claims that Narendra Modi’s emissaries had met him and other separatists for help in resolving the Kashmir issue.

Amid a raging controversy, J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah asked Geelani to identify the two emissaries who approached him on Modi’s behalf.

While Umar accused Geelani of “making irresponsible statements aimed at creating confusion among people”, the saffron party sought an apology from the Hurriyat hawk.

Geelani, who returned from New Delhi on April 16, had on Friday told mediapersons that Modi’s representatives had met him on March 22. He claimed that the BJP had also started communicating with the Mirwaiz group. “We believe this is a baseless and fabricated statement by Geelani aimed at misleading the freedom-loving people of Kashmir,” Mirwaiz said.

He was flanked by all members of Hurriyat executive, including senior leader Prof Abdul Gani Bhat and Sajjad Lone. “The APHC strongly rejects the allegations of Geelani. We neither talked to any BJP delegation nor did we talk to any emissary of Modi as claimed by Geelani,” Mirwaiz said.

Terming Geelani's assertions as “baseless and mischievous”, senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad in New Delhi said no representative of the Gujarat Chief Minister had ever met Geelani. "We demand an apology from Geelani for making this false and unfounded statement,” he said.

“On the Kashmir issue, the BJP’s stand is very clear - Kashmir is an integral part of India - and there cannot be any room for deliberations on this,” Prasad said.

“The BJP has also time and again condemned the negative role played by leaders such as Geelani, whose politics is a threat to the aspirations of the people of J-K,” he said.

Chief Minister Omar said the easiest way to find out the truth was to let Geelani identify the emissaries who met him on behalf of Modi.

“So who is lying SAS Geelani or the NaMo campaign? Easy way to find out - let SASG identify the emissaries who met him on behalf of NaMo,” Omar wrote on Twitter.